Death, Be Not a PITA

[MoonCat]

Dear Customer:

All right, someone you care about has died. You are not rational right now. I understand that. I've been there.

But I'm going to hit you with some facts, and some of them are going to hurt. Prepare yourself.

First: Except for you, your family and your friends, no one cares that Great-Aunt Bertha has just tipped over. The universe at large does not come to a crashing halt. We still have rules, deadlines and other work to do that we cannot ignore. These things will not be put aside for Great-Aunt Bertha.

Second: I don't know you. I can't take your word that someone has Passed Beyond. That is why we require a licensed funeral home to handle this, if it is a local death. That is why we need to verify that a death occurred, if it is not local. Yes, people do try to place prank notices for people who are still breathing. I had a situation last year where someone tried to place a notice for a person who supposedly died in Europe. It turned out that he was missing, presumed dead; and the rest of the family was not happy about the attempt to list him as dead. Which brings me to my third point....

Third: Your family feud is of no interest to me. I don't care that Dad had three marriages and all of his children, step-children and wives hate each other. When death occurs, it is not nice to brawl over who gets to be listed in the notice or in what order. Don't try to one-up the other side of the family by placing rival notices. We will not participate in your catfight.

Fourth: If you are the funeral director, READ YOUR DAMN PROOF. We send it to you for that purpose, not to be a souvenir for the family. And stop trying to circumvent our rules by having the family call in the notice. You KNOW we don't do it that way.
________

Thanks. I feel better now. If only I could actually send that letter!

[Rapscallion]

Third: Your family feud is of no interest to me. I don't care that Dad had three marriages and all of his children, step-children and wives hate each other. When death occurs, it is not nice to brawl over who gets to be listed in the notice or in what order. Don't try to one-up the other side of the family by placing rival notices. We will not participate in your catfight.

I've got to ask - how many of your calls as a percentage end up with that sort of affair?

Rapscallion

[bainsidhe]

I can see number three happening all the time. Even in the best of families, everyone has their own opinion about how someone should be honored. At such a tramatic, emotional time, people are highly likely to take offense and get into a real snit about it. All the kids and pets and grand-pets not listed alphabetically? Oh wait, should pets be listed at all? Should an ex or a dear friend be mentioned? What about mentioning clubs that may or may not have been important to the deceased? It's a touchy subject and I can appreciate why only the funeral home should confirm the announcement.

As for the pranksters, may Karma deal them a swift kick where it hurts.

[MoonCat]

I've got to ask - how many of your calls as a percentage end up with that sort of affair?

Rapscallion

I can't give you exact numbers, but it seems to be increasing. Last week all hell broke loose...it felt like half the population died and every one of them had ties to this area, so we had a lot of out-of-state family members calling to place death notices. A few of them were quite annoyed that we had to verify the death.

In the last couple of weeks, I've had several tricky family situations crop up with notices, people questioning what was going in the notice, family friends trying to make corrections and changes, families and funeral homes miscommunicating, and so on. And that's just me.

Haven't had any prank ones in a while. Usually as soon as you tell them you're going to verify the death, they hang up.

I can see number three happening all the time. Even in the best of families, everyone has their own opinion about how someone should be honored. At such a tramatic, emotional time, people are highly likely to take offense and get into a real snit about it. All the kids and pets and grand-pets not listed alphabetically? Oh wait, should pets be listed at all? Should an ex or a dear friend be mentioned? What about mentioning clubs that may or may not have been important to the deceased? It's a touchy subject and I can appreciate why only the funeral home should confirm the announcement.

As for the pranksters, may Karma deal them a swift kick where it hurts.

You'd be surprised how often they actually do mention the pets. We had one recently that referred to the "grandpuppies."